No Hope for Beyond
by recipe for insanity
Summary: Emotions do not force humans to feel nor do they excuse unacceptable behavior as much as we'd like to blame them. However, when L refuses B; he wants, needs to see L bleed like a human.


_Merry Christmas, Bloodshot Eyes :D _

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**No Hope for Beyond**

L usually does not trifle with trivialities, and after all, _they_ are just the _alternate_ and the _back-up_.

He shows though, stopping in the doorway. B hears him shuffle, switch the majority of his weight to his right leg and lift the left to scratch behind it. B thinks his discomfort should be more pronounced; his hesitation in approaching A laid out on the metal slab not enough. There should be sure signs of his guilt, an open admittance that it is his very existence that flagged death down and made it stop for her.

Yet he is composed as ever, and leans against the door of the autopsy lab before speaking, "B, Wammy says it's time."

Socially conscious now that he must be, A's final defiant act, L must show some pretense of remorse for leaving them to rot among the competition. What does it matter though, B realizes L is not really here. His attentions never waver for such mundane occurrences as death. He is probably even now reviving cases that have supposedly gone cold, have been dormant since before their births, their very first breath upon this earth. His heirs' short span of life no prize in relation to the monstrously creative criminal minds L preys upon, thrives upon.

And they, all three, know the madness in genius; in the seclusion of being one-of-a-kind, the weariness of their own psyche's inability to slow or come to a complete stop, to even take a breather. Only A believed they were fixable, as if Wammy's House could save them from the inevitable insanity.

She is—was certifiably insane to think that it was possible.

That's why B is here. He stands at the metallic stretcher's right, his thoughts strangling reason and emotion. She may have not been anything to him, most definitely nothing to _him_ as he hazards a glance at their mentor quietly sidling in to stand at his side, but he knows he is suppose to feel something more! Much more than the pervasive, echoing silence suffocating him and he knows that L knows too.

"It's your fault, y'know," B says squirrely, as if he itches to run after the words released into the void he and L cannot fill despite the intensity of who they are, of what they lack.

L lets the silence do his talking.

Come to your own conclusions has a certain understated elegance all of its own especially when accompanied by a hard edge of nonchalance and don't care. B wishes he could pull off the look, because L manages it. When he has tried it, he only gets creepier, a feat, A had previously not thought possible when he tried it out on her.

He examines his white wrists, free of the slashes that make A no longer a viable option, and wonders why he's given so much consideration to his competition. His pale complexion nearly as white as A's is. He looks at L and notices his skin-tone is just as translucent. Ironic that is. None of them differ even now when the ghost of her last breath left days ago.

"Hope killed her, B," L suddenly interjects, "Not me." He places a warm hand on B's wrist to still his fidgeting fingers, reminding B that he isn't a specter but a real live being with blood flowing freely through those blue veins. And their wrists and fingers entwine and B manages the inklings of a feeling. A murderous urge that grows with each new realization that L's remorse is not fake, but neither is it for A.

L feels as if he has failed, or that Wammy's House has failed. Either way, there is no hope left for B. A has taken it with her to the grave, and with her departure, the removal of one failed prototype, only B remains, the spoiled experiment left to gestate too long. And he hates L for his clinical detachment. And he loves him for the challenge he presents.

And he wants; needs to see L bleed like a human.

"Hope doesn't make you weak," he snaps testily, grabbing a scalpel off a nearby tray before he manacles L's wrist with his wiry, steely fingers, "This does!"

B cuts L slowly. The blade barely penetrates the skin, slicing through the dermis layer without hesitation. B wants the sting of its precision to be hyperbolized, but his satisfaction gets ripped away by L's stoic posture and amused gaze as he sees bubbles of blood form at the edge of the cut. His smile benign, he looks up with feigned innocence and expectation.

"The flesh is weak," B explains, cackling like the madman they expect him to be.

L's movements are too smooth and swift for B to react. L's spread-open jutting palm and wrist hit squarely between his nostrils. A nauseating crunch, the only warning B has before blood spews from the wound.

"Don't forget bones," L rejoins, seemingly at complete ease in the wake of the bloodbath he has just incurred. He gives B a speculative once-over before smiling, "We're flesh _and bone_," he chuckles and begins to walk away.

"And basic instincts," B gleefully taunts, his nose pinched by his thumb and forefinger in an effort to stop the steady flow of blood streaming down his face and trickling down his throat. "Fight or Flight. Right, L?" He gurgles out before choking on his own life substance.

L looks positively radiant to see some fight left in B. He saunters back over, his hands in his pockets as if he's holstered the deadliest of weapons and smiles down on B. The same self-sure smile of indolence he gives the rest of humanity when patronizing them. "Really B, that's your theory on my departure? I'm much more inclined to believe it's survival of the fittest."


End file.
